For many decades, traditional media distribution systems lacked an ability to effectively characterize and respond to consumer preferences in order to provide customized media content. In other words, traditional television broadcasting did not personalize the viewing experience because it did not address the undeniable fact that different viewers have different interests. With the advent of Internet-enabled television platforms, however, a wide variety of services and features directed to the individual viewer are now possible.
One current implementation of Internet-enabled television captures events such as record, play, re-play and pause. This operation is typically operated in the background. By correlating the precise timing of the event with the channel line-up and channel number, a determination can be made as to what exactly was being viewed when the event occurred.
Likewise, some players (e.g., Pandora® Internet radio players) are implemented with a function that allows the “bookmarking” of songs. If a song is played that is enjoyable for the listener, he or she can push a button on the player, which causes the title and/or artist of that song to be reported to a website. Later, when the user visits the website, he or she may review the list of video bookmarked songs and possibly decide to purchase one or more of the bookmarked songs from an online store.
Advanced television systems are being designed and service launched which include interactive elements. Along with audio and video, a television service provider can provide content which is programmed by that provider to offer the user an interactive experience with the content. This interactive content typically consists of a combination of scripted and declarative (e.g. textual and graphical) content.
Currently, there is no mechanism that allows scripted interactivity with the user to create video bookmarks for later retrieval of information on subject matter perceived by the user during playing of multimedia content.